The Kestrels
| The Kestrels | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | The Beltones, The Hi-Fi's |
| Origin | Bristol, England |
| Genres | Vocal harmony quartet |
| Years active | 1955–1965 |
| Labels | Pye, Decca |
| Past members |
Tony Burrows Roger Maggs Roger Greenaway Geoff Williams Pete Gullane Roger Cook |
The Kestrels were a vocal harmony quartet from Bristol, England, most notable as the group through which the songwriting team of Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway first met and started composing jointly. They were one of the busiest vocal groups in England during the late 1950s and early 1960s, singing back-up behind Joe Brown, Billy Fury, Eden Kane, and Benny Hill, amongst others, and made dozens of television appearances between 1958 and 1964.
The quartet's origins were in the mid-1950s, when they were in their early teens at school together. Tony Burrows, Roger Greenaway, and Roger Maggs' earliest influences were skiffle and rock and roll, and they began getting booked to play local dances. The trio expanded to a quartet with the addition to Geoff Williams, who extended their harmonies upward into the falsetto range. They quickly started to focus on singing and became established as a harmony vocal group. Their main influences were American rhythm and blues harmony groups such as The Platters and The Penguins, whom they did their best to emulate vocally.
The group members went through the Army at the same time, continuing to work together whenever possible, and it was during this period that they got their name. They initially started working together as the Beltones and the Hi-Fi's, but their manager, taking his lead from the manufacturer of the pencil he had in his hand at the time, decreed that they should become The Kestrels. It also fit in with an American tradition of harmony vocal groups that were named after birds (the Crows, the Penguins etc).
The Kestrels' debut single for Pye Records, "In The Chapel In The Moonlight," originally released as the B-side of their cover of Jack Scott's "There Comes A Time," came close to charting in late 1959.
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